Oculus Rift fitted with cameras to turn it into an augmented reality headset

We’re through the looking glass people, a group of students are fitting the Oculus Rift virtual reality headset with cameras to turn it into an augmented reality headset. The cameras are located on the headset’s visor and push their footage to a computer connected to the Oculus, the image is then displayed on the lenses before your eyes.

Between the cameras and the lenses the computer can overlay new information to the footage, augmenting the viewers perception of the world.

At first glance this project may seem a little bizarre and counterintuitive. After all, the Oculus is all about immersing yourself in strange world’s, a la Eve Valkyrie, right? What the team are doing is, in fact, nifty as hell.

With augmented reality devices like Google’s glasses still out of reach for most of us and certainly not in the hands of that many developers, the students at Ontario University are using what they have access to and reengineering it to their needs.

The project’s lead has managed to capture, process, and run footage into the Oculus using two cheap webcams. Now the rest of the team will get to work developing UI that can be laid over your view and controlled by waving your hands in front of the headset.